


Being Smart and Shooting Things

by fabrega



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: 1sentence, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-06
Updated: 2006-10-06
Packaged: 2019-10-01 04:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17237672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: John and Rodney, fifty different ways.





	Being Smart and Shooting Things

**Author's Note:**

> Involving canon through 3x10: The Return Part 1. 
> 
> Originally written & posted on LJ in 2006 as part of the 1sentence community, using theme set Gamma. Moved to AO3 in December 2018, with minor edits for spelling/clarity.

**#1: ring**  
They've been back on Earth for three days when Rodney's phone rings in the middle of the night; John is on the other end, his voice failing at nonchalance, saying, "I just thought I'd give you a ring and see what was going on," and somehow Rodney can't be mad that it's three in the morning.  
  
**#2: hero**  
"Oh, John," Rodney deadpans, "You've saved our village; you're my hero, take me now--" and John doesn't mind Rodney's cheap shot because this is the first time he can remember that Rodney has called him "John."  
  
**#3: memory**  
Rodney looks at John slowly, because neither of them has any memory of being here before, on this planet surrounded by these half-naked villagers, but they've both got this overwhelming sense of deja vu and, although he doesn't know why, Rodney is suddenly very turned on.  
  
**#4: box**  
John slides into the seat across from Rodney at breakfast; from the way he's eyeing the package Rodney got in the mail that morning, Rodney can just _tell_ that the next words out of his mouth are going to be "What's in the box?" which, in its way, is code for "Is there something shiny in there for me?"  
  
**#5: run**  
Rodney doesn't know he's said anything worth questioning until he notices the tilted-head-lifted-eyebrow combo Teyla is giving him and that John is staring at the table with an urgency generally missing from his laid back, everyday life; Rodney realizes, thinking back, that there's really no good reason that he could know as much as he's said about John's early morning routine--get up, go for a run through the halls before they get crowded full of people, take a shower--especially since Rodney is a notoriously late sleeper.  
  
**#6: hurricane**  
The second time the city is hit by a hurricane, it's their own fault--they had been trying to seed the clouds over the mainland to counteract the drought that was ravaging the Athosian crops--but this time they're ready, with a fully-charged ZPM, and so Rodney and John stand on the balcony and watch the lightning skitter across the city's shield, neither speaking but each glad the other is there.  
  
**#7: wings**  
Rodney looked absolutely heartbroken when he found out he wasn't going to get a set of junior pilot's wings for learning to fly the puddlejumper; unsure of what else to do, John punched him in the arm and smiled awkwardly.  
  
**#8: cold**  
Elizabeth looks at Rodney strangely as he sneezes three times in a row, and he can tell she's thinking about the cold John had last week and putting two and two together.  
  
**#9: red**  
John pulls the bandage tight against the bullet wound in Rodney's arm, watching as the red blood seeps through the white cloth, feeling guilty in the pit of his stomach like he can't explain--despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that Rodney isn't complaining about his wound like John had expected, just staring at him with big, silent eyes.  
  
**#10: drink**  
Rodney is less of a lightweight than John thought he'd be (John has forgotten the time Rodney spent in Russia) but still, when he's drunk he's drunk, singing "O Canada" to himself and telling John all the things he can't tell himself.  
  
**#11: midnight**  
It's midnight, eight hours into their soon-to-be ambush of the Wraith that was supposed to be get-in-and-get-out, when Rodney begins to question the intelligence that led them to select this location; Ford is fast asleep and Teyla is waiting with the second team just out of sight across the way, so John shuts up Rodney's whining the best way he knows how, covering Rodney's mouth with his own.  
  
**#12: temptation**  
John tells Ronon to resist the temptation to hit Dr. McKay, no matter how annoying he gets--but when Ronon, growling, asks to know why, John doesn't have an answer that doesn't involve the ache that grows in the pit of his stomach as he traces bruises and scars on Rodney's skin.  
  
**#13: view**  
The Wraith camp comes into view through John's binoculars, and he nudges Rodney, who had been nodding off, passing the binoculars to him, leaning in close and pointing to the spot in the distance where Rodney should be looking; they pause for a moment after Rodney has spotted the camp as well, realizing suddenly just how close John has been leaning into Rodney's not-invadable personal space, their eyes meeting and then looking away just as quickly.  
  
**#14: music**  
John walks in on Rodney picking out notes on some kind of Ancient piano in a room in an abandoned section of the city; Rodney doesn't have to say anything for John to know that this is important to him like few other things are.  
  
**#15: silk**  
Teyla's eyebrow shoots up at the extra item John tacks onto their trade request: along with the goods Atlantis needs to survive this season, John is looking for several nice, long pieces of silk (and John has practiced this) as additions to the puddlejumpers' med kits and _not_ to be used to tie up Rodney, not at all.  
  
**#16: cover**  
Major Lorne looks skeptical at John's insistence that Rodney will help lay down cover fire--"Have you ever _seen_ him fire a gun, sir?" Lorne asks in his "with all due respect, sir" voice--but John _has_ seen him fighting to protect the things he cares about and that's all the reassurance he needs.  
  
**#17: promise**  
"Rodney," John said, "You know I can't promise to come back safe; there are no guarantees out here."  
  
**#18: dream**  
"You offered to stay, instead of me, when the city blew," John says--Rodney has asked him about his Replicator-induced nightmares--and Rodney looks away, saying, "But you stayed anyway, and I had to deal with the aftermath without you," and John starts to wonder what exactly Rodney considers horrible, intimate torture.  
  
**#19: candle**  
John stares at Rodney as he lights a candle and sets it rather ceremoniously on the bedside table; John starts to ask "What the hell are you doing?" but Rodney preempts him, saying, "I'm setting the mood; we're using Lucius' herb to create romance, so it should be romantic."  
  
**#20: talent**  
"No," Rodney says, sounding annoyed, "I will not help you put together an act for the Atlantis talent show--besides, what is our talent, being smart and shooting things?"  
  
**#21: silence**  
After John asks Rodney if he can fix the Ancient machine and get them out of here before things start exploding, Rodney is strangely silent; in his silence, John can hear the words he's not saying: We're all going to die here--this isn't how it was supposed to end--I can't believe I let you down.  
  
**#22: journey**  
"Major, why are we here?--and don't give me that 'It's not the destination, it's the journey' crap," McKay whines, "Because we could just as easily have made this five-mile 'journey' in the puddlejumper," and Ford glances at Major Sheppard, who has stopped walking and is staring at McKay with a funny sort of "I'd kill you but there are things I'd enjoy more than that" look on his face, a strange look that's anger mixed with something else Aiden can't quite place; faced with this look, McKay stops whining quickly, although Ford still hears him muttering something about his poor feet as he falls behind again.  
  
**#23: fire**  
The city is burning and it's Rodney's fault; he's trapped on the East Pier, watching the walls crumble around him, clutching at his computer and for once in his life resigned to his fate, when the ceiling bursts out and there's John in a 'jumper, smiling grimly as he comes to the rescue, telling Rodney in words that mean so much more than they say, "I couldn't just leave you here."  
  
**#24: strength**  
"You can't flinch away from the gun when you fire it," John tells Rodney, positioning his hips and arms and shoulders for the millionth time, "You're stronger than it is; you can do this."  
  
**#25: mask**  
Rodney turns the Ancient metal mask over in his hands, saying to Elizabeth, "Well, it's possible that the Ancients used it for ceremonies of some sort--" but John interjects, "He doesn't know what it does," and Rodney shoots him a McKay Death Glare.  
  
**#26: ice**  
They visit Rodney's childhood home and it's still exactly as Rodney remembers it: the wooden mailbox with a squirrel on top, the big front yard full of trees covered in snow, the icy patch at the foot of the porch stairs--John slips, and Rodney automatically catches him, laughing.  
  
**#27: fall**  
Rodney watches as the Wraith hits Major Sheppard--the Major falls, hard, in the sand--and Rodney doesn't know why, but when he stands up, he pumps a full clip into the Wraith without even thinking, his shots flying truer than they ever have before or will again for a very long time.  
  
**#28: forgotten**  
Rodney sits in the mess, long after Zelenka takes his empty tray and goes back to the lab, scribbling equations into a notebook and trying to pretend that he's actually more comfortable here than in the lab; when he finishes his calculations, it's two hours later and John still hasn't shown up like he said he would--Rodney gathers up his notes and his dignity and leaves to sulk in his room.  
  
**#29: dance**  
"Teyla," Rodney says, looking at John but not addressing him, "Will you please tell Colonel No-Talent that we are not starting a band, especially not on such a flimsy pretense as 'the people of Atlantis could use some music to dance to'."  
  
**#30: body**  
Rodney clutches at the bullet wound in his side, his eyes big and his disbelief even bigger--the hole in his body hurts like hell, but John just blew a hole a mile wide in his trust and Rodney blinks back tears as Teyla shuts off the generator.  
  
**#31: sacred**  
Rodney's never been religious--the rosary was his father's; Rodney hasn't prayed since he lost God and found Science--and, for that matter, neither was John; but, he thinks as he lays the beads on John's coffin, if there was ever a time to believe in an afterlife, this was it.  
  
**#32: farewells**  
Rodney stands in the doorway of John's quarters, feeling seven different kinds of awkward, back on Earth, away from Atlantis, home for good-- "I guess this is goodbye, then," Rodney says, hating how cliche the words sound as they come out of his mouth, hating to sound dramatic when he knows they'll stay in touch but knowing it needs to be said somehow.  
  
**#33: world**  
Earth creeps up on John--they've been on the Daedalus for weeks, and he's been sleeping off the Wraith attack on the city--and he doesn't understand what the big deal is, since they've seen so _much_ in Pegasus, but Rodney drags him from his bunk as they approach their home-planet, telling John that this is something they really shouldn't miss.  
  
**#34: formal**  
"Kavanaugh has lodged a formal complaint, you know," Elizabeth says quietly, and neither Rodney nor John says anything in reply, instead exchanging a cool look that Elizabeth can see is charged with terror.  
  
**#35: fever**  
"John," Elizabeth says, "I can't allow you to go in there; Rodney is in quarantine for a reason--Carson says his temperature is 105, and we have no idea what he has or how contagious it is," but before she's even done speaking, John has decided he's tired of listening to her bullshit reasons and has stormed into the clean room, still not quite sure what he means to accomplish by being here; he puts an awkward hand on Rodney's arm, and Rodney stirs in his sleep.  
  
**#36: laugh**  
"I fail to see how this is funny, Colonel," Rodney says angrily, peering out from under the Ancient sombrero that no amount of prying can get off his head, but John just laughs and laughs.  
  
**#37: lies**  
"You, I'm talking to on the phone right now and having dinner with tomorrow, so not so much," Rodney says; this is a lie, because of _course_ he misses John, all the little things about John he can't say but can't get by without--why else would he sneak away from his lab to call John?--and he notices John says nothing about missing him, he knows these little lies are as close as they're going to get to speaking the truth.  
  
**#38: forever**  
"Quantitatively, 'forever' doesn't exist," Rodney says, his voice quiet and fierce to the point of breaking, not meeting John's eyes as he hurries over to another section of the lab.  
  
**#39: overwhelmed**  
Rodney has been running for a week on caffeine and adrenaline and shots that Carson really shouldn't have been giving him, trying to prepare and guide his team through the Replicator attack on the city, so when word reaches the lab that Colonel Sheppard was on the first ship when it blew, there is nothing Rodney can do but collapse into a sobbing heap.  
  
**#40: whisper**  
John watches Rodney and Zelenka whispering in the back of the briefing, feeling a pang of jealousy in his stomach at how close they look, and suddenly wonders if this is how Rodney feels when women start flirting with him.  
  
**#41: wait**  
There's an angry voice in Rodney's earpiece, saying, "McKay, whatever you're doing, it can wait; we need you in the lab now--" but Rodney can't even snap back an angry, impatient reply--"No, Radek, what you have _can_ wait,"--because John has him up against the wall and he can't trust his voice right now.  
  
**#42: talk**  
Elizabeth begins by saying, "Rodney, there's something we need to talk about--" and Rodney panics; John's been missing for eighteen hours and Rodney knows it's not his fault but they'd fought again before John left and suddenly he's told Elizabeth everything and she's sitting there with her jaw on the desk because all she wanted to do was talk about the feasibility of the rescue mission.  
  
**#43: search**  
Rodney thinks that Teyla knows--she must know--because they're putting on a search-and-rescue op for John for the nth time and Rodney is putting on his best brave face when she reaches out and gently pats his arm, saying that all of this will be okay.  
  
**#44: hope**  
The Wraith are coming and the city is in danger, but Rodney looks at John there in the briefing room and suddenly he's grinning like an idiot because despite all of the impending doom, he has _hope_ \--  
  
**#45: eclipse**  
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," Rodney murmurs to himself sometimes, but even this is not entirely true--John's eyes flash dark like the solar eclipse they witnessed on P3X-742.  
  
**#46: gravity**  
When John says, "I've never had sex in zero-G," he almost expects Rodney to grab his arm and drag him down to the 'jumper bay right away; he doesn't expect Rodney to shoot down his idea entirely by pointing out all of the physical difficulties and uncomfortable possibilities of the situation--John scrunches up his face with displeasure and calls Rodney a spoilsport.  
  
**#47: highway**  
John had never expected the men in uniform to show up on his doorstep, not with that kind of news; Rodney was dead and John got his in car and drove, drove away from this to somewhere they couldn't find him, until he couldn't drive anymore.  
  
**#48: unknown**  
"You can't view relationships as equations, Rodney," Zelenka says with a sigh, "There are too many variables, too many unknowns," and Rodney, outwardly indignant, thinks about all the things he's secretly tried to quantify, like John's IQ and impatience and tendency to get the girl.  
  
**#49: lock**  
"Open the damn door, Rodney," John hisses, his patience wearing thin as he bangs his fist on the door of Rodney's quarters, but Rodney has recoded the locks and so he simply replies petulantly from inside, "Not until you explain to me what the hell just happened with Chaya."  
  
**#50: breathe**  
Rodney remembers his first time up in the puddlejumpers, how the enormous emptiness of space and the smallness of the 'jumper had hit him at the same time and he had started to hyperventilate; he remembers the feeling of John's strong hands on his shoulders, telling him to breathe, feeling for all the world like the ground back under his feet and the sky above his head--that was when Rodney first felt home in John.


End file.
